History Commons^™

Book Review: Why War?, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Pay any attention to current events and it seems that war and conflict are everywhere: from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to the eruption of conflict in the Middle East in October 2023, to on-going geopolitical tensions in the Pacific over the status of Taiwan. It was only a decade or so ago that many were confidently predicting not only the decline but the outright end of war, as Steven Pinker boldly argued in his The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

The Tiny Village In The American Appalachians That Is More Swiss Than Switzerland, David Signer, Jonas Kakó

Swiss American Historical Society Review

About 150 years ago, Swiss immigrants founded the hamlet of Helvetia in West Virginia. Villagers still organize themselves democratically and celebrate Swiss festivals. The background of a popular video game is even modeled after the idyllic town. But can Helvetia survive?

Praising The Industrial Achievements Of Switzerland In The Early Twentieth Century: A Mural Painting Cycle For The Federal Polytechnic In Zurich, Alex Winiger

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The dome of the Swiss parliament’s building, the central part of the so-called “Bundeshaus” in Bern, is framed by four stained glass windows. They represent four pillars of the Swiss economy of around 1900: commerce to the north, textile industries to the east, agriculture to the south, and metal industries to the west. Other important sources of the growing wealth of the country are absent: finance (the banks), science (especially chemistry and its respective productions), and tourism. The latter found abundant representation in the railway stations of the time, relics of them still to be seen in the entrance hall …

Book Review: 50 Amazing Swiss Women: True Stories You Should Know About, Mary Brunisholz, Yvonne Sandoz

Swiss American Historical Society Review

From Mary Brunisholz:

50 Amazing Swiss Women is the collaborative result of five industrious women writers and one first-rate illustrator brought together by lead author Laurie Theurer, to present this modern view of admirable and inspirational Swiss women in historical and contemporary views. The target audience is primarily adolescent readers, but booklovers of any age will enjoy the read. Included with the book are companion materials for schools in English, German and French that are available for a free download at Bergli Books at 50 Amazing Swiss Women—Bergli.

From Yvonne Sandoz:

To mark the 50th anniversary of Swiss women …

Book Review: Iron And Blood: A Military History Of The German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500, John E. Fahey

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Modern Germany has a reputation for militarism and expansion. This reputation is often distilled into a simple view of German states as aggressive, regimented, and militaristic. Peter Wilson’s Iron and Bloodexplores how conflict has shaped German history since the 1500s. An accomplished historian of the Thirty Years War, Wilson is the right author for this work, and is able to draw out important themes and subtleties of German military history. He argues that although militarism is “integral” to German history and state structure, it was “neither an end destination nor a single trajectory of development” (xliii). He shows that …

Book Review: The Gilded Chalet: Off-Piste In Literary Switzerland

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Part detective work, part treasure chest, full of history and scandal, award-winning writer Padraig Rooney takes you on a grand tour of two centuries of great writing by both Swiss and foreign authors and shows how Switzerland has always been at the center of literary Europe.

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Schwarzenbach Goes South, Padraig Rooney

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Swiss writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach arrived in the United States in late August 1936 at the invitation of the American photographer Barbara Hamilton Wright. It was the first of three visits over the next five years, during which Annemarie reported on Roosevelt’s America for a variety of Swiss newspapers and illustrated magazines. Her first road trip through the Rust Belt was a success with her Swiss editors and the two women planned a second in the American South in the Fall of 1937. In late September, they boarded third class on the S.S. Berengaria, bound for New York. The effect …

End Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Scientists As Citizens: The Role Of The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists In The Postwar Era, 1945-1949, Elizabeth Baker Given

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In mid-August 1945 the dropping of the uranium and plutonium bombs devastated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing Japanese leaders to surrender to the United States. World War II had finally come to a close. However, the manner in which the war ended also marked the beginning of a new age. The detonation of the atomic bomb prompted unprecedented challenges in controlling the destructive weapon. Manhattan Project scientists, who had created the bomb in the midst of wartime secrecy and understood its grave dangers, were deeply concerned about the future of their brainchild. In a world that had been …

The Coronation Of An Historic Process: Franco And Spanish History, 1937-1947, Patrick Moran

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

History is not a whim, Francisco Franco declared to a youth group in January 1945. "It was not chance that many centuries before other nations Spain had forged its nationality and obtained its personality, nor that the undertakings of its sons had amazed the world with their heroic deeds." Six years had not yet passed since the end of the Spanish Civil War. World War II was drawing to a close, Spain faced an uncertain diplomatic and political future as one of the last of Europe's ultra-rightist political regimes, and the Spanish dictator was choosing to open his speech to …

Examining The Early Influences On England's First Female M.D.: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Audra Bollard

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1859 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson returned home from a short vacation. At this time she made an announcement so shocking her mother cried for days in humiliation and her father declared it disgusting; she had simply informed them she was going to be a doctor. Victorian women of the upper-middle class were expected to prepare for domestic lives as wives and mothers. In mid-nineteenth century England, professional careers were unheard of for females. Although the British-born Elizabeth Blackwell had become the first female to earn an M. D. in America, where she set up a practice, measures were quickly taken …

Glasnost, Perestroika And Big Mac's: The Significance Of Mcdonald's In The Changing Face Of The Ussr, Theresa Bartholomew

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Early on the morning of 30 January 1990, George Cohon, president of McDonald'sCanada, left his hotel room and drove to Pushkin Square in Moscow. Nervous about the international press that would be covering the opening of the first McDonald's in this nation and anxious to make the opening perfect, he arrived to see the streets empty in front of the fast-food restaurant except for a lone policeman. Wondering where the anticipated crowds of Muscovites were, Cohon approached the officer, concerned by the apparent lack of interest in the first McDonald's opening in the Soviet Union. After a short conversation with …

Re-Defining Thainess: Negative Identification During The Franco-Thai Border Conflict, Shane Strate

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On the night of 15 October 1940 over three thousand university students and city residents marched, torches in hand, through the streets of Bangkok to protest the latest incident in the long-standing border dispute with France. Local newspapers had organized the demonstration and a few journalists accompanied the demonstrators, standing in the back of trucks and making speeches designed to incite the crowd. The march was part of a newspaper campaign to convince the government to deliver an ultimatum to French Indochina: either return territories formerly belonging to Siam or face military retaliation. Among the banners carried by the students …

Preface, Rachel Cope

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This year the production of The Thetean has undergone significant changes. For the first time we have obtained our own equipment and are solely responsible for the publication of the journal. Although exciting, producing this work has also been a long and often cumbersome process; if things could go awry, they did! Yet despite the difficulties encountered, we have met our goals and will always remember the moments of cooperation and success we shared.

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

A Rifle Totin' Cartoonist: In Memory Of Bill Mauldin, 1921-2003, Casey Sullivan

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In late 2002, Jay Gruenfeld, a veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II, set out on a mission to give comfort to a man who unknowingly had done the same for him many years before. During the war, Gruenfeld was an infantryman in the Philippines. In the ensuing battles, his squad was decimated with close to one hundred percent American casualties. Gruenfeld was injured and sent to a hospital to recover, where he felt alone. While there, his father sent him a copy of Up Front, a collection of cartoons by Bill Mauldin. This was the first contact …

"La Tierra No Prometida" The Jewish Colonization Association's Venture In Argentina, Jeffery Richey

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the Jewish Colonization Association undertook the most ambitious agricultural project in Jewish history. The aims of the JCA project were simple and staggering: the relocation of millions of Russian Jews to the Argentine countryside, to be effected over the course of twenty-five years. Adjudged by its own epic ambitions, the colonization effort was an epic failure. Not only did it fail in its stated intentions (the transplantation of millions of Jews), but the colonization venture also failed to provide the thousands of Jewish colonists with self-sufficiency and social well-being, the pursuit …

The Myth Of An Easy Passage To The Far East, Brenden Rensink

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The tales of North American exploration and westward expansion have often been painted in tones of manifest destiny, heroic bravery, and divine providence. While such portrayals surely prove insightful in some cases, they do not paint the whole picture. A more accurate depiction of American exploration would include the driving forces of economic gain, naive optimism, overeagerness, and the hasty acceptance of geographical misinformation. The strength of these motives and forces was so strong that for centuries adventurers continued to explore the continent despite constant disappointment and financial loss. In particular, the closely related myths of the Strait of Anian …

A Tale Of Desire And Deceit, Dallas Peterson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This essay is a narrative account of the rebellion of An Lushan and the death of Precious Consort Yang, drawn primarily from a section of Sirna Guang's Zizhi tongjian, translated by Paul W. Kroll in "The Flight from the Capital and the Death of Precious Consort Yang," Tang Studies, no. 3 (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1985). This narrative also utilizes one of the two biographies of An Lushan: Howard S. Le,y, trans., The Biography of An Lushan (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960). With these two primary sources and a few key secondary sources I have …

Changing Of The Guard In Imperial Ideology Clement Attlee Vs. Winston Churchill, Charles C. Olson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On 2 February 1927, the young Labour Representative and future Prime Minister Clement Attlee found himself, much to his own surprise, on the shores of Bombay, sent to find solutions to a problem he later termed "virtually insoluble. " His ship arrived to a confused reception of both noisy protesters, waving banners of "Go Back," juxtaposed by a welcoming rain of flowers and leaves by supporters of the visit.' These polar reactions to perceived British intent in India during the late 1920s no doubt showed Attlee the energy of the debate surrounding Indian independence, which only intensified through the coming …

The Time Of Troubles Causation, Class Warfare, And Conflicting Interpretations, Jeffrey S. Hardy

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The end of a dynasty in medieval or early modern Europe was often followed by a calamitous period of conspiracy and revolt, intrigue and bloodshed. Such was the case in Russia from 1598 to 1613, the period later called the Time of Troubles. Few epochs still weigh on the collective conscience of the Russian people as does the Time of Troubles. Fears associated with this period remain to this day, as evidenced by the frequent references to it after the fall of the Soviet regime. But the Time of Troubles has not always been well understood. The chroniclers and revisionists …

"Watchman Over The Gate" Fort Snelling' S Role In Transforming Minnesota From Territory To State, 1819-1858, Nicholas Gentile

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

For nearly a century, scholars of Minnesota's history have told the story of Fort Snelling and its causal relationship with the expansion of Minnesota from a territory to a state. In 1918, Marcus L. Hansen wrote an important monograph on the outpost, entitled Old Fort Snelling: 1819-1858. His claims focused on the protection and opportunities for social interaction provided by the fort during the period of its use as the northwesternmost garrison of America's frontier defense program. Hansen's thorough work stood as an unapproachable milestone in the literature on the post for almost half a century. Evan Jones wrote the …

Freedom: The Temporary Gift Of Christmas, Suzy Bills

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In Solomon Northup's account of his years as a slave, he described "the happiest day in the whole year for the slave. . . . Happiness sparkled in the eyes and overspread the countenances of all." What was the day that caused so much delight for slaves, and what were the reasons for this joy? It was Christmas Day and, more broadly, the larger Christmas holiday that often lasted many days. Northup continued to explain that these feelings resulted because "it was to be a day of liberty among the children of Slavery. Wherefore they were happy and rejoiced." In …

"This Medley Of Religions" The Origins Of America's Free Religious Market On The Colonial Frontier, Frank K. Lambert

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

According to historians of modern revolutions, the American Revolution was hardly revolutionary. Merely a constitutional quarrel, they say, pointing out that the split with Britain left existing social and economic structures largely undisturbed. Surely any revolution deserving the name would have, at minimum, eliminated chattel slavery, the very antithesis of liberty and independence. Yet slavery remained and even flourished in the new republic. There was one accomplishment, however, that even the harshest critics agree was truly revolutionary: America's constitutional ban on religious establishment and guarantee of free exercise to all. Throughout the Old World, state religions and political regimes acted …

Preface, Julie Harris

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Historian Charles Beard aptly described writing history as an "act of faith." In preparing the following articles, each author has selected facts and chosen frameworks to describe their topics with the hope that we all can better understand some aspect of the movement of history. The Beta Iota Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, an international honors society of history, has also acted on the faith in ilie quality of its members by entrusting a small group of students, mostly undergraduates, to produce the 2004 volume of the Thetean. We as a staff hope that our final selection of articles, …